The attempt to scuttle the historic nuclear agreement between the United States and its international partners and Iran shows that Republicans once again are putting politics before the best interests of the United States and the world.

First, a short history lesson.

In 1953, the administration of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower used the CIA to depose the democratically elected leader of Iran and installed the shah, who was despised by his people.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan sold spare parts for Iran’s U.S.-made military equipment, including missiles, in a deal for the release of American hostages held in Tehran.

In the late 1980s, George H.W. Bush sold weapons to Iran and Iraq when they were fighting one another.

Let’s contrast these policy failures with the peace agreement negotiated in the late 1970s by Democratic President Jimmy Carter between Egypt and Israel, two countries that had fought several all-out wars. This peace agreement still stands, 30-plus years later.

Diplomacy has brought three decades of peace between formerly sworn enemies. At the same time, it’s obvious that the Republican Party’s approach to peace in the Middle East is a proven failure.

Also, let’s not forget that negotiations by President Obama and international partners resulted in President Bashar Assad in Syria giving up his chemical weapons without a single dead American soldier or pilot.

Support the president, and don’t let the Republican Congress lead us down the primrose path to another $3 trillion war in the Middle East, like the one in Iraq – financed by you and me, the American taxpayer.

George Harlan

Old Orchard Beach

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